Oct. 27 talk will cover new recycling guidelines

by Cathi Lehn

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District rolled out new recycling guidelines for county residents earlier this year. The district’s goal was to reduce confusion about what could and could not be recycled by creating a consistent countywide message about how to recycle properly.

Diane Bickett, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, will speak at the Lee Road Library on Oct. 27, at 6:30 p.m., and provide information on how Heights residents can become better recyclers.

Residents are throwing a lot of things in their recycle bins that should not be there—food, clothes, toys, engine blocks, garden hoses—even bowling balls. This causes problems, because sorting out these contaminants comes at a high cost. To improve recycling, the district is seeking ways to encourage people to recycle more and recycle better.

Working with a national recycling nonprofit, the Recycling Partnership, and with two local marketing firms, the Fairmount Group and Trait Studio, the district developed a common set of recycling instructions that apply to every community in the county and prepared educational templates for each community to use. To develop these guidelines, district staff and their partners met with the four recycling facilities that collect and sort the county’s curbside recyclables, to learn what can and cannot be recycled.